Lucina was very nearly the spitting image of her father: she carried herself like him, spoke like him, fought using the same sword and the same style. Albeit, she was pretty in a feminine way, lithe and slender and svelte. Her outwardly girlish appearance helped to distinguish her from her father—her father, who was all bulk and muscle and brute strength, and the only person Cordelia had had eyes for for the longest time. Strangely enough, Lucina was also about as strong as her father. She had to wonder where all that power was coming from. It certainly couldn't all be in those skinny little arms.
It seemed to her that Lucina tried to act like her father too, perhaps force of habit from her apocalyptic future, wherein his only legacy was a sword and the child he had left behind; not even the halidom had survived. Perhaps acting like him gave her strength. Maybe she thought she was channeling him, this future Chrom. Cordelia briefly tried to imagine what Chrom would look like a decade and a half from now—older, wiser, handsomer. Maybe his hairstyle would change. She always thought it looked a little too long. The stray curls and cowlicks suited Lucina somehow, though. She just let it grow out; she had other things to worry about. Haircuts were a luxury of more peaceful times.
Then Cordelia felt bad for reconstructing the past (or would that be constructing the future? It was always so hard to tell). That was something private, secret; under normal circumstances you wouldn't ask someone about that, although she had a sense that Lucina would be willing to share, because sometimes it helped to discuss it, so that you wouldn't feel as if you were going at it all on your own.
She didn't feel terribly guilty about asking about Lucina's hair, and if one topic led to another, then all the better.
"My hair?" Lucina said, unconsciously twisting her finger round a thick lock. It was the exact same shade as her father's. Cordelia refrained from reaching out and touching it. This was more awkward than she had anticipated. She had rarely spoken to Lucina outside of brief, polite conversations, during which she was completely guarded, and, as she recalled, maybe even a little anxious.
"Is there any reason you keep it so long?" To distinguish yourself as a girl, Cordelia thought. It wasn't exactly a stretch to think of her as androgynous given her dress, and her face would betray nothing; with short hair, and her voice just a pitch lower, she could disguise herself as a male youth—which is exactly what she had done. It didn't make things any simpler, either.
She blinked. "No. I suppose not." She kept looking at her own hair. She was probably wondering what Cordelia found so remarkable about it.
It was almost evening, and the skies were painted red and orange and purple. Against the light, there was a thin, healing scar along Lucina's cheekbone: one single, visible brush with death. Cordelia found her gaze being constantly drawn toward it, and she tried not to stare.
She felt awfully tired, trying to be the example for everyone. She had lived, toiling for the sake of other people's approval, for so long, that when she finally recognized her feelings it was like a slap in the face, a wake-up call to all the things she had been deprived of. All those buried emotions—of resentment toward her fellow recruits, of passion burning white-hot, of shame and anger first directed toward herself and then slowly, blooming ever outward—she managed to neatly compact into her obsession with Chrom. She was perfect in every sense save for the fact that her love was unrequited. The idea was neat, simple, and tidy: just the way she liked it. It was perfect. Just like her.
Something dull and familiar ached in her chest. She started to stare. Then she pulled her gaze away. She rubbed her eyes. She was tired and not tired at the same time. She felt antsy.
"Are you sleepy?" Lucina asked, then paused. "You know, I always see you helping out. It's a wonder you're even able to fight; you're always up on your feet."
"But you're the same way, aren't you?" Cordelia replied automatically. "You never stop to take a breath."
"Are you calling me a hypocrite?"
"We're all hypocrites, in one way or another." Cordelia flashed a wry smile. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."
Lucina's mouth twisted into a frown. It was the kind of expression Chrom would never make. "Are you certain?"
"You don't believe me, do you?"
"Well, it's just that..." She hesitated. "You're always avoiding him—my father—and..."
"It's all right, Lucina, really." She flashed another, smaller smile. She wondered whether she had ever gotten over Chrom in the future, or if she had continued to pine after him until her own untimely death. She desperately hoped it was the former.
Lucina's gaze was that of a wary animal—a fawn, perhaps, or maybe a stag suited her better. A fawn would just run away. A stag might actually charge. "Take care of yourself." Those were words Cordelia had echoed to others many times. "And I mean it." It sounded like a threat, but coming from her, it wasn't something she could take to heart.
Although she couldn't relinquish the feeling, Cordelia felt bad. It wasn't as if Lucina had no idea what she was talking about.
The next day, sometime in the afternoon, someone—Vaike, or maybe it was was Virion—found her passed out on top of her pegasus, lance on the ground. They carried her to the medical tent, laid her down on a bedroll, and checked her temperature. She was informed, when finally awake, that she was running a high fever. They told her to stay in bed, and that if they ever caught her walking around today they would knock her out and drag her back inside.
She wondered if Lucina had noticed a flush in her cheeks yesterday and had simply refrained from mentioning it. In any case, Cordelia doubted she would have acknowledged the fact anyway; she worked no matter how terrible felt, because that was all she knew how to do. She sweated in her clothes, and she felt nauseous. Her mind felt alarmingly empty. She thought about Chrom, and then about her husband, and then about Chrom again.
Her thoughts drifted repeatedly to Lucina, her obvious concern, and the family resemblance to Chrom. They were one and the same, Lucina and her father. Cordelia was concerned that she wouldn't be able to distinguish between them, but then again, Lucina was slender and long-haired and obviously feminine, except for that one time she disguised herself as Marth and pretended to be a boy. She fell asleep to the thought of Chrom being a woman, and her loving him all the same.
She woke up shivering, her face coated in a sheen of sweat, and she felt miserable and ill. A little later someone—it was Lissa, she realized—wiped down her face and neck with a wet washcloth, and muttered something like, "This looks really bad... Hang in there, Cordelia; we can't afford to lose you." There was a bitter taste in her mouth, then. What would they ever do without her, she thought.
At some other point Severa, long hair swishing from side to side, came in to hurl insults at her and then cried and grasped her hand and told her not to leave again; she wasn't allowed to. She couldn't.
"I'm not going anywhere," Cordelia murmured. "It's just a fever. It'll pass."
Severa stared at her with violent red eyes, chin high, gaze set. "Don't you dare die on me," she hissed. "I'll never forgive you if you do."
She meant it. For all the things she didn't mean, Cordelia could tell that this time she did. She squeezed Severa's hand. "I won't," she said. "I promise."
"That's what you said last time." Severa's voice quavered. "And you never came back."
"So much for being the perfect mother, huh?" Cordelia laughed through a thick fever-haze. It sounded genuinely funny to her. She was anything but perfect, really—she was spiteful and hopeless and repressed, neither able to say what she wanted nor take it for her own. She was jealous of Severa. She would give the world to be as open as her. She loved Severa, although she hadn't even had her yet; her unfamiliar, unconditional love was like a light shining in the darkness.
"Don't say that," she said. "You are perfect, because you're my mother."
She woke up again, in the early morning, to see Severa asleep by her side and Panne next her daughter, sitting completely still. She really did look like a rabbit.
"Good morning."
"Morning," Cordelia mumbled. She didn't feel any different than yesterday. She was beginning to worry; maybe her condition was something serious.
"They're always looking for you, you know, around camp." Panne gestured outside the tent. "They ask, 'Where's Cordelia? What's happened to her?'"
She laughed dryly. "They're like spoiled children."
"Well," she said, "I'm disappointed to see this is the only way to get you to rest." Her eyes flickered down to Severa. "This is your future daughter, is she not?"
"Severa? Yes... I suppose you two haven't spoken very much?"
"Not particularly, no. But you know what she calls me?"
"What?"
"Aunt Panne."
"Aunt... Does she really?" Severa had always been full of surprises; all the children had. But "Aunt..." "Are we really that close in the future?"
Panne shrugged. "I don't see why we couldn't be. Though I wasn't expecting it myself."
"It makes sense though," said Cordelia, "since you've no warren to return to, you've got to make friends somehow."
"It still sounds strange to my ears."
"Oh, no, it strikes me as odd, too."
"Then again..." she sighed, "gods know how my son grew up to be such a coward."
"Yarne? Oh yes. He'll fight when he needs to, but... I suppose he didn't take after his mother very much, did he."
"Honestly, even as insufferable as Severa can be sometimes, at least she's still willing to fight. With Yarne, you have to grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag him out onto the battlefield. And yet he still chooses to wear the taguel armor." Panne shook her head. Her ears flopped. "He shouldn't have."
"It didn't sound like he had much of a choice, though, in the future."
"Well, if we manage to survive this war, I'll see to it that my son doesn't have to do anything so... unsuited to his personality."
Cordelia slipped a hand out of her blankets and stroked Severa's hair. She groaned and mumbled something, shuffling closer. "They're nice though," she said. "Our children, I mean. They're so eager, so full of energy. They make me want to try my best, too."
"That is the power of a second chance. You don't take anything for granted anymore, not when you've lost everything."
"I wonder if I was a good mother," she said idly, and she thought of Severa, and wondered what Severa thought about Chrom—whether she liked Chrom because her mother did, or if she hated Chrom because he never realized how much Cordelia cared about him.
"Who knows? Severa says you were perfect."
Later in the day, she tried getting up out of bed. Her vision swayed in and out of focus, and her center of balance was off. She struggled even just to stand up; the world seemed to swim and lurch and move of its own accord.
She heard someone talking near the tent flaps. "...no, I wouldn't want you to catch her sickness. We need you out there. No, there's no reason for you to come in; if you need something I can get it for you. If you want to talk to her, you can do it later. She's tired. She needs her rest. Please, Chrom, I know you're trying to be nice, but not right now." Then she heard footsteps moving away from the tent, and Sumia stepped in.
Her eyes widened. "Cordelia! Didn't Lissa tell you to stay in bed?"
"I know..." she mumbled, "but it's so... and I have nothing to do..."
Sumia walked over and pressed down on her shoulder. "Sit down, at least. You look like you're going to fall over."
"I'm sorry..." She sat down, obediently, on her bedroll.
Sumia knelt beside her. She stared at the tent flaps, and then looked back at Cordelia, examining her face intently.
"Is there something on my face?"
"No... No. You heard me talking to Chrom outside, didn't you?"
"I understand why you did it. I wouldn't want to make things awkward, either."
"Well, you do seem rather sick, so he was concerned about you, but—then I started worrying that he would get sick, and..."
"You came in, though."
"Well, I don't care if I get sick, but we need Chrom to be at his best. He's the one who's always leading the charge, so I..."
"It's all right, Sumia. Relax."
Sumia scrunched her face, as if she were on the verge of tears. "Is it? Is it really?"
"I don't understand what you're talking about," she said, and through the filter of her fever-stricken mind, it almost sounded true.
"It's because you never do anything for yourself, and—"
"I don't do it because I don't have to. I have friends like you who are going to take care of me, right?"
"Of course," She set her mouth in a straight line. "I'd never abandon you. You know that. But..."
"You can't feel guilty over something like that."
"Just then..." Sumia said, "just then, it felt revolting. I don't want to keep you away from him. I want you to be friends. But then I think about what I've done, and I feel like such a bad friend, and after everything you've done for me... I can't do anything right, can I?"
Cordelia grinned. "You and everyone else, you're all acting as if this fever is your fault. I mean, I suppose it could be, if it were one of Tharja's hexes or something, but I doubt it..." She lost her train of thought. "What I mean is, it isn't, and everyone needs to stop acting like it is."
"But it is!" Sumia argued. "And we don't! We expect you to do all sorts of things for us, because you like helping people, because it's what you do. But then when you can't, we don't know what to do anymore. We're all taking you for granted, aren't we." Cordelia thought she saw tears brimming in her eyes. "As if you couldn't fall in battle at any moment." Then the tears started to fall.
"Well, that's how people survive, dear," she said, wiping the tears away. "Sometimes things don't always go the way we want them to."
"But you're my best friend," she said. "It's different."
"No, you're royalty. It isn't."
"I can be both."
"Yes, you can. But you're going to have trouble."
"I don't care," she said firmly. "I feel like I've been so selfish around you."
"He was the one that proposed to you, Sumia. I never even had the courage to speak to him."
"But I should've..."
"You deserved it. All right? Even if you don't believe it yourself, try to believe it for my sake."
Sumia stared hard at her. Her eyes looked so dark. "You can't stay like this forever, you know."
"I know."
Her daydreams were filled with ideas of what she would do once she was healthy again, unshackled from the chains of sickness. At some point, she decided that the first thing she ought to do was apologize to Lucina. She wasn't even really sure why—but for some reason she figured it would clear her conscience.
For some reason, around dinnertime that evening, she was expecting Lucina to come in. Her husband had already come in earlier that day to fret over her, so she was the only one Cordelia could reasonably expect to show up. Well, Lucina and Robin, but Robin was even busier than she. Their tactician already had plenty of other issues to juggle, though she did admit it would have been a pleasant surprise.
It wasn't Lucina. It wasn't Robin either.
"Cordelia, I am so sorry about Sumia. I don't know what's gotten into her." He knelt down by her bedside.
"C-Chrom?" He was so close. She was definitely going to make him ill.
He smiled. She must have been dreaming still; this couldn't be happening. "Everyone's been so worried about you, I had to make sure I stopped by. You're running a fever, right? Is there anything I can do to help?"
"N... No," she said, looking away. "Lissa says I'm recovering at about the normal rate."
"Are you sure? You're always running from one place to another. I've never seen you take a break." Now he sounded just like Lucina. Cordelia was certain her face was on fire, and she didn't think it had anything to do with the fever, either.
"You and everyone else," she said, in a sudden fit of exasperation. "The army's getting along just fine without me, isn't it?"
"Well... Things are a little less convenient, or so I've been hearing. You're a real asset, you know."
"Asset," she said under her breath.
Chrom frowned. "Did I say something wrong?"
She shook her head. Hair fell into her face. "No. No, it's nothing, really, Chrom. I'm fine. You don't have to fuss over me."
"I... I'm not," he protested. "I care about everyone in this army. I'm not going to ignore you just because you tell me to. What sort of leader would that make me?" Every word coming out of his mouth hurt to hear. She was just one of the legion to him, wasn't she.
"Well, as you can see," she replied, and her patience was running thin, "I've gotten to the point where I'm able to eat without—where I can eat properly. That's a sign of improvement, if nothing else."
"Good. I'm glad." His smile returned, briefly. Cordelia wanted it to stay there forever. "But Sumia..."
"You ought to know her well enough by now, Chrom. Give her a little more time."
"You're..." He furrowed his brow. "You two aren't fighting or anything, aren't you?"
"She's certainly making it seem that way, isn't she? She's just beating herself up over something that wasn't her fault. You know," Cordelia nodded, "the usual."
"Is..." He hesitated. "Is there anything I can do for you—either of you? For some reason, I feel as if this has something to do with me. I'm not very good with women. But Sumia's too polite to tell me if I've done something wrong, so could you do that for me, Cordelia? I want to know. I really do."
Her chest ached. "No. I can't."
What was she supposed to say, "I loved you and you never noticed?" "I wanted you and you never asked?" "You're totally oblivious to the affections of everyone around you?" Or maybe just, "I love you and you proposed to my best friend, and I hate you for it, and I never want to see either of you ever again."
"I see," he said. "I'm sorry for asking so suddenly."
Cordelia was quiet. She felt moody and nasty and old and bitter. She hoped that this wasn't the kind of person Severa had for a mother. She felt monstrous.